Product Description

User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
Paul E.
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: January 12, 2015

Bottom Line:

I thought I give my 2 cents even if it's 16 years after the fact. I worked at Future Shop at the time we were taking on HK as a product line in late December 2008, had the Reps do their spiel, discrete amplification, clear sound, HK reputation and what not I bought into it especially when I could purchase the components at half price. Purchased the AVR45 for myself along with the 5 disc changer and the two channel integrated amp with a tape deck and a single cd player for my parents.
The integrated amp literally sparked up within a couple of days and received a replacement, the tape deck and single cd player are still functioning but then again my parents rarely use them.
The AVR45 receiver, I was never really satisfied with the sound, always had to turn the knob all the way to get any sound even with very sensitive speakers and for that reason hardly ever used it, I remember turning people away from this early stages of Chinese manufacturing, it's 16 years now, looks brand new and still works but he sound is un-pleasurable, I stopped recommending H/K to my customers a long time ago I found the boards here either 5 star or 1 star, for those who had nothing but praise for the AVR45, you either must of been paid to write the dribble or you're truly are satisfied with a subpar product like the AVR45, I paid $600.00 at the time and was being listed for $1200.00 CDN and I was thinking "what a steal"

I purchased this around the time it was a new model circa 1999 at Frys Electronics in Burbank for roughly $700. It was powering some CV RE25's, JBL HLS Center, Klipsche Rears. The unit would overheat when I turned it up and I believe it struggled to drive the Fronts at higher volumes. Didn't help with the CA heat. Every since I placed the receiver in well ventilated areas and at my home in CA I ran an external fan in the enclosed cabinet. The unit put out beautiful sound, all inputs have worked since day one. The unit has run on standby for many years with various use. I moved to a new place in Seattle and decided to once again put it into Home Theater Duty with an HTPC, BUT I was determined to solve the problem of the lack of power by hooking up 4 Marantz MA500 Monoblock amps to the pre-outs and now the receiver has the missing piece. A lot of things have changed since then for Home Theater, and for a 5.1 receiver it can still get the job done for light listening, but if you plan to drive some bigger speakers you need a powered amplifier. So if you run across this second hand this review should tell you what to expect. I recall seeing a bunch of these on buy.com years ago which had been remanufacturered. I'm sure related to overheating issues. While the value was never there considering the initial cost, after I addressed the heating issue it had, the reciever has lasted over a decade and there is something to say about that. The sound is very warm and aside from not having s-video inputs/outputs the next model up had, it has been very versatile. The integrated Coax and Optical inputs gave it a new lease on life with my HTPC so I will give it a few more years before it gets retired.

This receiver was great while it lasted. Picked it up for $130 as an HK refurb on E-bay about 3 years ago. Unfortunately the heating issues are all too true and mine finally kicked the bucket. My wife left it on and shut the door on the stereo cabinet. After that it developed a slight hum and about 2 months later started pushing even more hum and failed to push any audio even while it still powered on.

It's a nicely finished unit and looks great in the cabinet. But yes it gets hot as hell. A few comments here about 45W being "more than enough" but I have to wonder if it really had the juice to sustain long periods of high output use. I never experienced any clipping, distortion or shutdowns though the heat build-up did seem extremely high.

Pet peeves:
If you unplug the unit - or in any way lose power - you also lose all your surround settings. This wouldn't be a big deal if you didn't have to reset each component - DVD, Video, CD, etc. - separately.

Technically it's a "learning remote" but it's pretty difficult to effectively program. And without onscreen display (something you expect at this level of component), trying to navigate the unit's tiny display can be a pain.

Never really seemed to push the center speaker all that effectively and I often had to bump the output level to hear dialogue all that well.

Oh yeah - the decoder has a bit of a lag so that you often lose the first second or so of Dolby audio and then - *click* - it kicks in.

At any rate, I can't complain for getting 3 years of solid use out of it for the price I paid. But realizing that this thing was once toward the upper end of the HK range, it's a bit disappointing to see such issues

Bought the product in 99 and did not plug it in untill 2001 when I could afford proper speakers. Had problems from day 1 but of course warranty was expired. The system would suddenly start to increase and decrease in volume. Finallt did a hard reset and it seemed to fix the problem until a month ago. The system suddenly started shutting off. After a few occurances it shut down and now will not power back on period....off to the repair shop I guess.